134 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



self-destruction. The facts are that they are very vora- 

 cious fish (you have only to look at their enormous jaws 

 and teeth to see that), which pursue sprats and other small 

 fishes greedily. In still weather the small fry swim near 

 the surface, and often close inshore, and the frost fishes 

 follow them. If in the course of their pursuit they get 

 into broken water-, their deep ribbon-like shape renders 

 escape somewhat difficult, and, instead of getting out to 

 sea they frequently head straight inshore, and so land 

 themselves into shoal water. Frost fishes are not often 

 thrown ashore on the open beach at St Clair or Green 

 Island ; the sea breaks too far out, and they are thus 

 probably warned of their danger while still in deep enough 

 water to escape. But on the more gently sloping and 

 sheltered beaches about Purakanui Bay, and especially at 

 Hampden, they come ashore very frequently in still weather 

 in the winter months ; hence their popular appellation. 

 The frost fish is by no means confined to New Zealand 

 waters. It is common in the Mediterranean, and ranges 

 in the Atlantic Ocean from the southern shores of Britain 

 to the Cape of Good Hope, and is elsewhere known as the 

 "Scabbard Fish." 



Occasionally one picks up on the beach a little ribbon 

 fish, a delicate little strip, perhaps nine inches long and an 

 inch in depth, nearly as thin as a ribbon, and of a glass-like 

 transparency. It is now known that those fragile organ- 

 isms are only young eels at one stage of their life history, 

 and that had cruel fate not washed them ashore they 

 might ultimately have grown into eels capable of living 

 in a fresh water stream or lake, or even of lying sub- 

 merged in the damp mud at the bottom of some nearly 

 dried up lagoon. 



Very many, if not most, pelagic organisms are trans- 

 parent and glass-like ; the jelly fishes and Portuguese 

 men-of-war, the salps and the crustaceans, all partake 

 more or less of this character. No doubt this transparency 

 aids them in escaping the notice and kind attentions of 

 their enemies. Of the crustaceans, perhaps only one need 

 be specified, not only because it is of very peculiar form 



